Adirondack Family Time™

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By Diane Chase During a change of season I am always a bit overwhelmed whether its a new school year, Christmas shopping and all those twinkle lights or springtime mud. Everyone needs to get outside so here are 8 days of nature activities to do with your family to clear your head, no matter what environment you live in. Day One:  Look at the sky. Simple you say but how many times do you work in an office all day, commute to your job, sit in your car, play outside but never look up at the sky. Take a look. What do you see? Stars? Clouds? A jet? My daughter saw a magic carpet and a mermaid. Yes, together. Day Two: Look down, get on your knees down low and look at the ground. Look past the concrete and other stuff and try to find the earth.  Yesterday you looked up and today you look down. That is what children look at all the time, whether they are just learning to walk or running around. Get down low today and see what you have been walking on all this time.

Happy May Day! Craft:  Make A May Day Basket: The tradition is for children to place a simple bouquet of flowers on the door of a friend or neighbor. What I enjoy is it gives children a chance to surprise adults and do something kind without costing a penny.  The "basket" can be as simple as a used tin can or glass jar with wire or twine for hanging.  The kids can go outside and fill the jar with lovely spring flowers. If you aren't in an area with fresh flowers about, make some tissue flowers for everyone to enjoy!  History: There are many traditions surrounding the first of May. Beltane was the name given to this time, on the Celtic calendar.  The name originates from the Celtic god,  Bel  - the 'bright one', and the Gaelic word 'teine' meaning fire, hence the name 'bealttainn', meaning 'bright fire'. May Day is the beginning of the 'lighted half' of the year when the Sun begins to set later in the evening

HAPPY EARTH DAY! This is my daughter's favorite cake to make. It doubles as an Earth Day/Birthday celebration. If anyone is interested in making it, what I did was quite simple. 1) Make your favorite cake recipe. I used the one-bowl chocolate cake from Craig Claibourne's New York Times Cookbook . You have to make two batches for each half of the globe. 2) Find two bowls of the same diameter. Oil and flour the insides of both. 3) Cook as directed and when finished cool and use a spatula to pop the cakes out of the bowls. 4) Frost. I made a no-cook butter cream frosting. Frost the two halves together forming the globe. 5) Put a light coating of blue-dyed frosting over the sides leaving a small area on top for the polar ice caps.* 6) Lastly use a globe as a guide, with a different color frosting "paint" on your continents. 7) Go for a run. That butter cream frosting is just that, butter. *I couldn't find my blue dye and berries made the "world" too pu

C alling All Kids pre-school through Grade 2 For the Children's Museum at Saratoga's  Annual Big Truck Day Poster Contest Contest Rules: Open to children pre-school through Grade 2. Design the poster at the museum's own Creation Station art room, at school, or at home. Submissions must be on white paper between 8.5 x 11 and 11 x 17. Please include child's name, school grade, name of school, & contact info (address & phone number) on the back of your submission. Deliver submissions to The Children's Museum by  Tuesday, May 19th, 2015 . Prize Package: The winner will have their design featured on all promotional materials  and will receive a prize package including:   A $50 gift certificate to G.Williker's!  FREE tickets (2 adults and 3 children) to the Big Truck Day Event! And more to come! Big Truck Day is always held the first Saturday in August. This year Big Truck Day will be held August 1, 10 am - 2 pm   at the Ma

  One minute it feels like we have so much snow and the next moment it seems to all melt away. It is this tricky time of year that we have to choose our wooded walks with care. There is plenty of snow still hidden among the trees when we make a quick stop to take in the beautiful view from Big Cherrypatch Pond.   I’ve only ever noticed the sign for Cherrypatch Pond heading west toward Lake Placid from Whiteface Mountain. Little and Big Cherrypatch ponds bookmark Rt. 86 and we’ve never given the ponds their due. With only a passing glance from our vehicle, the ponds always seem more marshland than open water. The trail to Big Cherry Patch pond starts on the south side of Rt. 86 with its outflow crossing beneath the road to the northern Little Cherrypatch Pond. We park at the small designating area and make our way over the remaining snow bank. The whole hike is less than ½-mile round-trip, but since we are searching for signs of spring, we plan on taking our time.

Last year at Saranac Lake's BluSeed Studios, my daughter and I went to see a concert that blended beautiful music with the origin of the clarinet. Since my daughter is just learning to play the clarinet, it seemed like the perfect way to strength her love of playing. It did so much more, for both of us. With world-wide trading at our fingertips, eBay and auction houses, it feels like we have lost touch with the beginning of things. We have certainly lost sight of our food source and we've also lost sight of our resources. An organization based out of East Berne, NY has been working to preserve the wood source of the clarinet, piano keys, bag pipes and more. Since 2010 Clarinets for Conservation  has run a program in Moshi working with school children and teaching music, conservation and tree planting.  Clarinets are made from the Mpingo Tree, commonly referred to as African Ebony or Blackwood tree, also the National Tree of Tanzania. It takes 80 years for a Mpingo to gr

We only have five maple trees on our property and each year we produce two gallons of maple syrup, just enough for our family's consumption. Making maple syrup is a rewarding experience for children and families. It is a wild foraged food source that does take a lot of time, but is always worth the effort! • Can syrup be made from any sap out of any tree?  Well, it depends on what you want to use the syrup for. If you want something to sweeten your morning pancakes then maple trees have the highest content of sugar. Syrup has also been made from birch trees,  • How do you get the sap out of the tree?  A person has to drill a hole into the tree and tap in a spiel, a small peg that will let the sap drip out. A bucket or jar is also attached to the tree to catch the drips of sap. 

by Diane Chase A cost effective way to pot plants and recycle and reuse from your paper bin is to make newspaper "peat" pots that can be planted directly into the ground. It is an easy process and children enjoy the activity. it can be done on a rainy day, if you need something to do or make a family night out of the activity. Then plants your seeds or seedlings, water and wait for your indoor garden to grow! Continue for step-by-step directions

April 11 is the 2nd annual Kidding Day at Asgaard Farm and Dairy A Springtime Farm Visit isn't Old-Fashioned Family Fun! It's about showing children/kids where food comes from.  While the rest of us have been searching for spring under all the latest snow, Asgaard Farm and Dairy has been getting signs of spring since early March in the form of over 70 baby goats. Perhaps the reason there is still so much snow in the Adirondacks, Mother Nature has been waiting for the annual Asgaard Farm Kidding Day.  The owners and staff at Asgaard encourage visitors any time of the year, but this April 11 from 10 am – 3 pm is dubbed Kidding Day. During Kidding Day the barns are open for people to walk through. Some goats are grouped in smaller pens while other goats wander around in an open barn. There are other animals to view and a full store to browse. There is food provided during Kidding Day, but if last year is an indicator, it goes quickly. It is serviced on a first come, fi

Join Saranac Lake teacher Maria DeAngelo April 17 18, 19, 20 as she walks to Albany through the Adirondack Park.  *Updated with Friday Departure Time!  How do you solve a problem, like Maria?  If you want to teach children how to solve a problem, no better example exists than my daughter's New York State (NYS) 6th grade public school teacher, Maria DeAngelo. Maria's dynamic approach to teaching is the same in and out of the classroom. She is not just talking the talk, but walking the talk. Starting on April 17, 2015 Ms. D (Maria) is asking students, teachers, children, administrators and especially the  New York State Board of Education  and  Governor Cuomo  to look at public education from the inside out and take a  "Walk in Our Shoes." DeAngelo is hitting the road and walking from Saranac Lake, Lake Placid, through the Adirondacks, to Albany in support of public education. Maria DeAngelo (Ms. D) is the type of teacher that my children have had the pr

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." ~ Lao Tzu (640-531 BC) Chinese Philosopher

This spring the Adirondack Shakespeare Company is launching its first Adirondack spring tour with the tragedy Romeo and Juliet . The play will open at North Creek's Tannery Pond Community Center for one night only. This professional theatre troupe will be hosting shows from Saratoga Springs to Upper Jay, NY. According to ADK Shakes Artistic Director  Tara Bradway  the company has been producing its summer festival season in the Adirondacks since 2010 and an autumn season since 2013. Now they are expanding their Adirondack season to bring Shakespeare in springtime as well.  "We did a spring season in the past but it was always based in New York City," says Bradway. "Now we've been here [Adirondack] full time for the past year. We feel there is a demand for  'off-season' programming. We wanted to transplant that spring season from New York City to the Adirondacks."  "We chose these plays because the tragedy and comedy are so nicely balan